Entries in chicken broth cheese
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Happy Monday Foodies! My facebook is having many temper tantrums today, so I may not be around much today until Mark Zuckerberg and his team of minions can get it all leveled out. It may be a week; honestly, I could care less. I need a break from facebook, I think.

I hope your weekend was fabulous! Nick and I had a pretty good weekend. We stuffed our faces at Red Lobster on Saturday night {because he was gracious enough to cede to my Red Lobster cravings}, but we were both pretty sick later & throughout the night. In between my sick ‘moments’ I muttered a food poisoning question his way and he did not answer. For those of you who do not know, when Nick doesn’t answer a question {and he is listening to me} he is ‘thinking’ about it. Thinking in most cases means he wants to say yes, but he also does not want to be wrong.

He thought we were poisoned!

Later in the morning we figured out we were not poisoned, which was great because I love Red Lobster {for reasons beyond my comprehension.} Because we were having such a down day yesterday we sat around and watched movies all day. We have Netflix and we get movies in the mail, so we needed to watch them and send them out to get more. We’re new to Netflix, but we love it so far. It seems like a lot of people are complaining about Netflix and the increased prices, but our plan is SO cheap. I am talking about $20/month for unlimited streaming television, movies, etc. and we have three movies sent to us and we can exchange them as many times as we want each month. I don’t get it. If you read about the company’s initial business plan you can see the obvious {potential} divide between the internet portion and the physical portion. Both of those pillars of the company are taking off in different directions, so they separated them. It seems like a good way to go, especially if the separation is seamless and does not interrupt my connection & activity. So far, so good.

I think some people just like to complain when there are changes. We evolve through change. Change is good {in most instances.} *I say that with a slight caveat, because I can see somebody commenting about democracy dying and evolving into a dictatorship or fascist regime and I do not need that kind of interpretation. Please, let’s be reasonable!

Sick of my indiscriminate ramblings, yet? I bet you are. So, let’s get down to why you are all here: FOOD!

Last week I stumbled upon a recipe over on my friend Heathers website, Basilmomma: A busy Mom who likes to cook. There are not many people you can actually say you met online that you love. I am serious. With the exception of those people who find love online through eHarmony, I cannot reasonably say I know anybody who has found a group of friends like I have and love them like I do. There are a finite group of people that I absolutely love. I think of them as my friends. I think of them as my extended family. And I look to them for inspiration, encouragement and motivation. Heather is one of those people.

Okay, I am moving on from my overly sentimental musings. I saw a soup on Heather’s blog that I knew I was going to try immediately; it was for a Potato Blue Cheese Soup. I love potatoes. I love Blue Cheese. I love soup. I was in heaven. I made a few adaptations as I tend to do for a variety of reasons, mainly due to what Nick and I like and what we expect to see in soups and what my fridge and pantry has to offer me. So for this Meatless Monday segment, I have Extra Sharp Cheddar and Blue Cheese Potato Soup.

I added a few homemade croutons to the top! {You will see that recipe another day! I will tell you it is super easy!}

I will tell you that I tried making this a different way. If you take a look at Heather’s recipe it says you can use a crock pot and she uses a bunch of other ingredients {including actual onions and garlic}. Yep, I did it that way initially. I had a BUNCH of time because I started it early. So I sautéed the onions and garlic, I added the potatoes and liquid, along with the sautéed onions to the crock pot and I cooked it for several hours on high. However, the taste was not jiving with me for some reason. I think I may have added too much onion and the potatoes were not cooking for me. {There is a big chance that my impatient nature kicked in and the potatoes would have cooked.}

Anyway, I have no idea what happened and there was no way I was eating the soup with that potent onion flavor, so {gasp right now} I dumped it all. Then I prepared it on the stove and omitted the onion.

I was reluctant to tell Nick about the incident. Not that he would get mad or anything, because this type of stuff does not compare to capturing terrorists; meaning, it takes a lot for him to get angry or aggravated at me.

Just as I suspected, my foodie blunder was tossed away like a sand granule flying across the beach. It did not bother him at all, but it was a weight lifted off of my shoulders.

It did not hurt that he could smell the delicious blue cheese as soon as he walked in. #Score

I hope you all give this a try. I would suggest you making it in a stock pot on the stove for a couple of reasons. First, all of the ingredients will be easily incorporated. Second, it cooks a lot faster. Finally, it is DELICIOUS!

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Thanks,
~Mel